IBU warns HSBC cus­tomers about ‘in­fe­rior set­tle­ment’ of­fer

The In­de­pen­dent Bankers Union said in a state­ment it has been in­formed that HSBC Bank is con­tact­ing cer­tain cus­tomers, some of whom are also mem­bers of the IBU to of­fer them com­pen­sa­tion in re­la­tion to what HSBC Bank it­self de­scribes as “a legacy op­er­a­tional and reg­u­la­tory fail­ure in the bank’s now closed bro­ker­age busi­ness”.

The IBU re­ceived com­plaints from its mem­bers who are also cus­tomers of HSBC about the fact that they are be­ing of­fered an in­fe­rior set­tle­ment amount than their true le­gal en­ti­tle­ment for com­pen­sa­tion.

The union strongly sug­gests that im­pacted in­di­vid­u­als are to act with cau­tion be­fore ac­cept­ing any money in full and fi­nal set­tle­ment. In ad­di­tion, the union rec­om­mends that these in­di­vid­u­als should seek pro­fes­sional ad­vice be­fore sign­ing any waivers in fa­vor of HSBC in re­turn for a com­pen­sa­tion which may be far less than what they are en­ti­tled to re­ceive at law.

In its cor­re­spon­dence with stake­hold­ers, HSBC is us­ing state­ments such as “the ac­tions fol­lowed were es­tab­lished in dis­cus­sion with the MFSA” which the IBU per­ceives as be­ing highly mis­lead­ing since they pro­ject a false sense of re­as­sur­ance. Such state­ments seem to in­cor­rectly im­ply that the se­lec­tion of cus­tomers el­i­gi­ble for com­pen­sa­tion, as well as the ba­sis and amount of such com­pen­sa­tion car­ries the ap­proval of MFSA.

The IBU warns its mem­bers that a pos­si­bil­ity ex­ists were they may be en­ti­tled to a higher com­pen­sa­tion than the amount which they are be­ing of­fered, but should they sign a waiver, they will no longer be able to re­cover the dif­fer­ence.

The In­de­pen­dent Bankers Union has al­ready con­tacted MFSA urg­ing it to in­ter­vene so that cus­tomers of the bank are not mis­led and they are paid their full le­gal en­ti­tle­ment re­sult­ing out of HSBC’s self ad­mit­ted breach of the law. The IBU will be tak­ing the nec­es­sary ac­tion to safe­guard the in­ter­est of its mem­bers and urges both its ex­ist­ing mem­bers as well as all in­di­vid­u­als who are el­i­gi­ble to be­come mem­bers to make con­tact with the union asap.